By Linda Pearce
London: Andy Murray has proved he can perform in London, notably on the famous Wimbledon lawns of the city's leafy south-west, but he is yet to bring his best to the ATP World Tour finals that can this year add an exclamation mark to the new world No.1's finest season.
On Tuesday against Croatian seventh seed Marin Cilic, Murray opens his eighth tilt at the title owned for the past four years by Novak Djokovic. Having pinched the No.1 ranking from the Serb last Monday, Murray will either hand it back by the end of this week or join Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic as just the fourth man in 13 years to be crowned the ATP's year-end No.1.
In his measured way, Murray insists he does not feel any different when he gets up on these mornings than he did before finally ascending to the top spot at the Paris Masters – while also conceding that any change may be more apparent in practical ways.
"Maybe when you step on the court you have a little bit more confidence, feel a bit better about yourself when you're actually hitting balls and getting ready for the tournament," the Scot said at the O2 Arena. "But I didn't feel much different when I woke up on Monday morning. Felt just the same."
Dedication and effort: Andy Murray is hoping to become just the fourth man in 13 years to be crowned the ATP's year-end No.1.Credit: Getty Images
Yet what peers such as Cilic are seeing is the culmination of more than a decade of dedication and effort coinciding with the decline of Federer and Nadal and the unforseen-but-likely-to-be temporary dip of Djokovic, which has created an opportunity that Murray was equipped and overdue to exploit.
The 29-year-old has this year won a major title (at Wimbledon), a big one (the gold medal at the Rio Olympics) and his past four tournaments (to make a tour-high eight for the season). By the time of the semi-final walkover against Milos Raonic in Paris, Britain had its first No.1 and the world its oldest first-timer since Australian John Newcombe in 1974.
"In order to do that, you have to start 10 years back and Andy has been unbelievable since he came on the tour," said Cilic, the 2014 US Open champion, second-time WTF qualifier. "He was at the top of the rankings the last eight, nine years and has been been playing extremely, extremely well.
"Definitely this new step from him just shows that he has improved a lot this last year or two; also I guess motivation-wise looking from outside you could see that he was a little bit more motivated also when it came to 'smaller' tournaments – the 500 tournaments or even Masters 1000 tournaments. He really wants to win every match he can and that has been really good for him this last six months. He was quite close in Australia, and the French Open he also played well. He definitely deserves to be in the position that he is."
Yet one of the seven players to beat Murray this year is Cilic, who prevailed 6-4, 7-5 in the Cincinnati Masters final after having lost 11 of the first 13 meetings between the pair. "So I'm going to take a few things from that match to try to implement here," said Cilic, who in August replaced his former coach Goran Ivanisevic with Jonas Bjorkman, the Swede who worked temporarily with Murray last year.
"But on the other hand, it's also a little bit different conditions, we play indoors and he's been on an amazing run in these last few weeks. He's going to be extremely motivated, plus he's going to have a crowd on his side and he's been playing well when he needed to, under pressure ... so definitely he's going to be extremely motivated for this week."
Murray has qualified for the season finale eight times, and played seven, for three semi-finals. In 2014, he was exhausted from the late and desperate lunge just to get there, suffering a 6-0, 6-1 drubbing from Federer when he did. Last year, the looming Davis Cup final complicated matters, with Murray playing on a London hardcourt while his main focus was elsewhere.
"The first few years it was here I played well. I did play good tennis," Murray said. "There was a couple of years when I wish I could have played and done a little bit better but like last year it was difficult to judge because I prepared for the tournament by practising on clay."
What has changed is that he will commute for the first time from his mansion in Surrey, rather than staying in the ritzy Thames-side player hotel. Something else that has, apparently, changed is the court speed, which is to Cilic's liking as well.
"The court's definitely a bit faster this year, so that changes the way you play the matches a little bit but I think that's a positive thing," Murray said. "At the end of the year when a lot of the players have played a lot of tennis to have it on the slowest court and really, really long rallies is tough, so it will shorten the points a bit and maybe make for some better tennis."